So Lush, So Deadly ms-56

by Brett Halliday

  “Petey, slow down a minute.”

  “And just what do you think gives you the authority to issue orders? Go there, do this, pick up so-and-so. I’m the one who gives the orders, do you understand? The sooner you get that through your head the better.”

  “Orders?” Shayne said mildly. “I hope that radioman didn’t misquote me. All I said was that if you had nothing better to do, I’d appreciate it if you stopped by the Opa Locka Airport. I’m glad you could make it.”

  “You don’t fool me for a minute, Shayne! I know the way you talk about me behind my back. People have told me. I’ve had verbatim quotes.”

  “Petey, is this getting us anywhere? Did you locate Mrs. Brady?”

  Painter held up one hand. “Do I have your permission to speak? Before I tell you what I’ve done about your polite request to locate a certain Mrs. Katharine Brady, would you kindly tell me who the hell Mrs. Katharine Brady is and why you want her?”

  “She killed Moseley,” Shayne said.

  Painter had a habit of hearing only the things he wanted to hear, but he heard that. He gave his mustache a quick flick in both directions.

  “She killed Moseley, did she?” he said sarcastically. “Here I’ve been going on the supposition that you killed Moseley. Rourke gives you an alibi for the crucial time, but everybody knows about you and Rourke, you’ve been co-conspirators for years. This wouldn’t be the first time somebody killed a man, then came back an hour later and found the body. What makes you think you can pin it on this woman?”

  They were alone in the anteroom except for a Coast Guard yeoman on duty at the desk. Sometimes there was only one way to make Painter stop talking. Shayne gathered a handful of his suit in one fist and walked him backward against the wall.

  Painter took it well. “I warn you, Shayne,” he said pleasantly. “Take your greasy hand off my suit.”

  “Did you find Katharine Brady?”

  “Why should I answer your questions when you don’t answer mine?” He called over his shoulder, “Richardson! Foster!”

  Shayne pulled him away from the wall and walked him to the inner door. Two Beach detectives held up in the doorway.

  “It’s you, Mike,” Richardson said.

  Shayne was grinning. “We do better in front of an audience, don’t you think, Petey? I can usually keep my temper when we have witnesses.”

  Still grinning amiably, he backed the smaller man into a room in which Paul Brady lay, his head heavily bandaged. A Coast Guard medic was with him.

  There was only one chair, and Painter took that, more at ease now. Shayne looked out in the anteroom.

  “Can we get some more chairs in here?”

  The medic at the bed looked around. “This may not be such a good idea, Shayne. Better wait.”

  Shayne went to the bed. “Paul, this is Mike Shayne talking. Did you hear the doctor?”

  “Yes,” Brady whispered. “What happened to-”

  “Mrs. De Rham? That’s what we’re going to be talking about. If you mean did we recover her body, the answer is no. I got my hands on her but I couldn’t hold her. You’re probably curious about what happened. I have to explain a few things to Chief Painter, who’s sitting here trying to control himself. There’s no reason why you can’t listen. Otherwise you’ll get it in bits and pieces over the next couple of weeks, which would be bad for your peace of mind. It’s up to you. If you’d rather do it later-”

  Brady’s lips moved. “Get it over with.”

  “I thought you’d prefer that. Any time you want us to clear out, let us know.”

  Shayne heard a familiar screech of tires on the asphalt, and Tim Rourke came running in.

  “The traffic in this town, I mean it. I’ll have to get the paper to buy me a siren. Who loaned you the jump suit, Mike? Too small, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Shayne said wryly, easing the pull on his crotch. “Painter doesn’t want to answer any questions, for some reason. Something about protocol. What did he find out about Moseley?”

  The reporter looked skeptically at Painter. “Let’s put it this way, Mike. Nothing.”

  “How about Mrs. Brady? Did they locate her?”

  “Easily. She checked out of the St. A. at six to make a seven-o’clock New York flight. It’s five after seven now. They had a good description of her from the hotel people, and they shouldn’t have too much trouble identifying her. I mean, with the seat number and her name on the reservation. Of course with Miami Beach detectives you never know.”

  “Birds of a feather,” Painter remarked bitterly. “Now that you have the information you wanted, Shayne, will you kindly return the favor? It’s time to do some talking.”

  Chairs had begun to arrive. After they were distributed Shayne sat down close to the bed and said in a low voice, “Some of this may not hit you the first time, Paul, and if you want me to repeat anything, move your hand. Remember you have no obligation to say anything. You’re entitled to a lawyer if you want one.”

  There was a slight answering movement from Brady to show that he understood. Painter, across the room, had the sense to remain silent.

  Shayne said, “You’ll have to make a full statement to the Coast Guard about the circumstances of the fire. Right now I want to tell Painter how I think it happened. This is all hypothetical. You can indicate assent if you feel like it, but it’s not important.”

  He lit a cigarette. “The people at the marina were awakened by loud noises on your boat. Mrs. De Rham was seen drinking gin from the bottle. Gin, or tap water in a Beefeater bottle. You’d been sitting in that berth for two weeks, and now all at once she wanted to go for a sail. You tried to talk her out of it, but she was a hard woman to talk out of things when she really wanted to do them.”

  “Yes.”

  “She wanted to see the sun come up over the water. And it turned out to be a very nice sunrise. I hope you noticed, Paul. It may be the last you’ll ever see.”

  Brady’s hand moved.

  “Yeah,” Shayne said, his face impassive. “It’s a bad acid burn and the chances are that nothing can be done about it. But maybe everything else worked out. Let’s see.” He turned to Painter. “There’s somebody else we’re going to need, a guy named Raphael Petrocelli. He’s at a motel in Biscayne Park, the Dunmovin, registered under the name of Sam de Angelis. Will you send somebody to get him? Or Tim will be glad to go.”

  “I will not,” Rourke protested. “I want to hear this.”

  After thinking about it longer than necessary, Painter nodded and one of the detectives went out.

  “To continue, Paul,” Shayne said. “You made so much racket getting away that it makes me wonder if you wanted to be sure plenty of people saw you go. At this point, if you were being questioned in the usual way, you’d point out that Mrs. De Rham was making most of the noise, and she was well known to be a drunk.”

  Brady’s hand moved.

  “And not only a drunk,” Shayne said. “She had a well-authenticated history of mental disturbance, in which fire always played quite a part. I found that tape, incidentally, just where you thought I’d find it, in a Volkswagen a couple of blocks from Jennings Park, and the only reason I was around to pull you out of the water was that I have a thick skull and a nice girl named Helen scared the boys off before they could do any permanent damage. The tape proved that Mrs. De Rham burned down the Massachusetts factory for the insurance. The watchman saw a woman driving a white Oldsmobile convertible, and I think we’ll be able to establish that she owned a white Olds at the time. I expect to sell this tape to the insurance company for five percent of the amount they recovered, which is why I sound cheerful, in case you’ve been wondering.”

  Painter stirred. Shayne silenced him with a look.

  “To come back to what happened this morning. The sun was about to come up, and Mrs. De Rham, poor mad Mrs. De Rham, started playing with matches. You’ve been a little in awe of her because she’s the one with the money, and by the time you realized you
had a serious fire on your hands it was too late. Now here’s a funny thing. The Coast Guard tells me they didn’t get an alarm from your boat. Why not? Luckily for you, I’d already put in a May Day call and they were on the way with a helicopter. We managed to save you. Don’t comment on this yet, Paul. I’m sorry about Mrs. De Rham. I did my best, but all I came up with was her wig and her jacket. The jacket had a bullet hole in it.”

  He pulled the jacket out of the capacious pocket of his coveralls and tossed it to Painter, who held it to the light and looked closely at the edges of the hole.

  Shayne continued, “You had a gun, Paul, and one of the things that’s been bothering me is why you needed it. To protect your privacy? People who are looking for privacy don’t tie up at that kind of marina.”

  “Brady killed Mrs. De Rham?” Painter said. “Is that what you’re saying, Shayne?”

  “No, that’s not exactly what I’m saying. But if you want to arrest him for it, go ahead. You might be able to make it stick even without the body.”

  “I’m not about to arrest anybody before I know a little more,” Painter declared. He snapped his fingers. “Let’s have the rest, Shayne.”

  Shayne gave him a direct look. “Your men have been involved in this from the start. You talked to Brady and the woman, and you know the situation. I’ve been reporting to Richardson. If you want somebody else to take over, fine.” Before Painter could answer Richardson said hastily, “Don’t stop, Mike. I’m learning things all the time.”

  “All right, Petey,” Shayne said. “You probably realized that the woman on the boat, the drunk you talked to, wasn’t Mrs. De Rham.”

  “She wasn’t?” Painter exclaimed. “Who was she?”

  “Paul could tell us,” Shayne said, “but he has a very good out. All he has to do is stop moving and we’ll think he’s gone under. He put on a fine performance, one of the best pieces of acting I’ve seen. Every time I felt a little twinge of suspicion, he came out with something so perfectly right for the situation that I couldn’t help believing him. Of course it tapered off. He was getting rushed at the end.”

  “Will you try to be more specific?” Painter said.

  Shayne smiled amiably. “I’ve really been talking more to Paul than to you, Petey. I want him to understand that the curtain’s come down and he’s in trouble. The first time I talked to him, he told me just where to go to find the missing husband. The next time I was looking for a reel of tape. Paul made what turned out to be an excellent suggestion. I would have swallowed one of these, but not both. There’s a funny thing about that tape. It’s going to cost Mrs. De Rham or her estate considerable money, and if she’s still alive, which by now I think we all doubt, it could put her in jail. I warned her that if I found it I’d have to turn it in, and according to Paul she said to go ahead. He had to be lying, or else the woman throwing up in the head at the time wasn’t the real Mrs. De Rham.”

  He glanced at his watch. Painter tapped his toe impatiently, and Shayne knew he couldn’t stall much longer. The International Airport was seven miles away. If Mrs. Brady had been picked up as she boarded the plane she should be here now. He lit a fresh cigarette, wondering how long he could make Painter hold still. He thought of another diversion, but before he could get it underway he heard a car pull up outside.

  He jerked his head toward the door. Painter followed him. They met Mrs. Brady in the corridor.

  “Mike Shayne,” she said. “Damn you. I knew you had something to do with this.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “Mrs. Brady?” Painter said. “I’m Peter Painter, Miami Beach Chief of Detectives. I have some questions to ask you.”

  “I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” she told him scornfully, “and you’d better have some explanation for taking me off that plane. I’m one of those people who enjoy fighting City Hall.”

  She turned back to Shayne. There were shadows under her eyes, but the eyes themselves were clear and untroubled.

  “When did you wake up?” she said with a slight smile.

  “About ten seconds after you left the cabin. I didn’t drink much of that mickey you gave me. I told you I didn’t like vodka-especially vodka laced with chloral hydrate.”

  “That’s what I get for being soft-hearted enough to cut you loose. You might at least have finished the love making we started. I could easily resent that.”

  “You didn’t have your heart in it.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Mike,” she said softly.

  “Now look here,” Painter said, “I want somebody to tell me-”

  They continued to ignore him. Shayne picked her bag out of her hand. She grabbed for it, but Shayne took her arm and passed her along to Painter.

  “Slug her if she makes any trouble.”

  “Pretty transparent. Pretty crude provocation. Nobody’s going to accuse me of brutality.”

  “I erased it, of course,” she remarked as Shayne took out the tape she had recovered with the aid of Teddy Sparrow.

  “I think it’s too hot to erase. It won’t be hard to find out. The question Petey wants to ask you-did you kill a man named Thomas Moseley at about two-thirty this morning?”

  “Do I look like a murderess, Mike?”

  He looked into her eyes, and nodded.

  “Yeah, a sexy-looking one. Did you see the red cross over the door? Your husband’s in here, in pretty bad shape.”

  “Paul?”

  Her smile faded, and Shayne saw a spurt of apprehension in her eyes. She went to the doorway.

  “Paul,” she said, very low. “What happened to him?”

  “We aren’t sure. He was in a fire. And apparently somebody threw acid in his eyes. Does it matter to you?”

  “Of course it matters.”

  Her own eyes had filled with tears. She went quickly to the bed and sank into the chair Shayne had been using. She took Brady’s hand.

  Slowly Brady reached across with his other hand and touched her. His fingers went up to her hair, then down her cheek to her shoulder and her breast. He pulled his hand away.

  “Shayne,” he said sharply and distinctly. “I want a lawyer.”

  “Pretty soon, Paul. We still aren’t asking you questions. We’re just theorizing. You can order us out if you want to, but don’t you think you’d better know what facts we have so you can make your plans?”

  When Brady didn’t answer Shayne said, “I have a tape I’d like to play. Tim, where’s your recorder?”

  “Outside. I’ll get it.”

  In a moment he was back with the recorder. He found an outlet.

  “I’d better explain how this was made,” Shayne said, giving the reporter the tape he had taken from Mrs. Brady’s bag. “Mrs. Brady learned that her husband was living on a boat with another woman. She’s been trying to divorce him-I’ve heard that from a couple of sources. She hired a private detective to plant a listening device on the Nefertiti, to pick up any conversations that might be taking place in the main stateroom.”

  “That’s illegal,” Painter snapped. “What’s the name of this private detective?”

  “I can’t remember,” Shayne said. “Do you want me to play it or not?”

  Painter’s eyes shifted. “Play it, of course.”

  “A girl on the next boat, a nice kid named Sally Lyon, happened to be on deck, awake, and she saw the bug being planted. A little while later she saw somebody swim up to the Nefertiti’s blind side and come up a rope ladder. A man with a beard. The missing husband, obviously, who was supposed to be off in a pad in southwest Miami.” Brady lay perfectly still. The tape began to revolve.

  A voice said suddenly, “Well, did Shayne fall for it?”

  Shayne stopped the tape. “That’s Paul Brady. He means did I fall for the hippy set-up. Did Henry convince me he was really running away? The next voice is going to be Henry’s.”

  “Why shouldn’t he fall for it?” De Rham said irritably when Shayne started the tape. “That’s my milieu, man. I c
an’t tell you, it’s just so great. The chick has still got a tangle of bourgeois hang-ups, but she knows they’re there and she’s trying hard. The thing is, there’s no pressure. The time floats by. Maybe part of it’s pretty phony, but it’s the best kind of phony. If we ever get out of this-”

  “With dough,” Brady said.

  “We either get out of it with dough or we don’t get out of it.”

  Richardson put in suddenly, “Hold it, Mike.” Shayne pressed the stop button. “You said the bug was picking up conversations in the master stateroom. Then it wasn’t really a woman aboard with Brady?” He looked hard at Shayne. “It was De Rham in drag?”

  “That’s how it looks,” Shayne said.

  Painter stood up abruptly and sat down again. Mrs. Brady looked at her fingernails.

  Rourke exclaimed, “I don’t get it, Mike.”

  “I tried every possible combination, and that was the only one that would fit. Don’t feel bad about it, Tim. I’m the one they really fooled. They took a hell of a chance, but they had to, and I’m sorry to say it almost worked. I just want to point out before we go any further that the morning they put on their performance for me I had no reason to think they weren’t the people they said they were. The dialogue was pretty convincing.”

  Rourke protested, “Mike, are you trying to get us to believe you can’t tell a man from a woman? For Christ’s sake.”

  “Undressed I’ve never made a mistake yet,” Shayne said, “but they weren’t undressed.”

  Rourke gave a disbelieving laugh. “I don’t buy it. Now give us the switch.”

  “There’s no switch, Tim. This is straight. If I’d had a little more background when I went in I might have caught it, but I’m not sure about that-they did a damn good job. It was a carefully staged scene. They’d probably rehearsed it a dozen times.”

  “But, Mike-”

  “Use your imagination,” Shayne said impatiently. “I had no description of Mrs. De Rham except that she was a neurotic and a drinker. Petrocelli was the one person in Miami who knew what she looked like until Tom Moseley showed up, and somebody killed Moseley with a gin bottle. Petrocelli kept coming back to the boat after they fired him. He saw Brady a couple of times but he never saw Mrs. De Rham. She was in bed drunk-or so they said.”